Posted on by Xevious

Adobe PDFViewer Safari Plugin, No Thanks

Whenever I have to install or update Adobe Acrobat, I always have to go back in afterward and remove the Acrobat plugin from the Library/Internet Plug-ins directory. With the most recent update to Acrobat Reader 9.1, I spotted a new option. I was able to uncheck this plugin. Thank you Adobe for giving me this option. Preview is just fine for me for 99% of my needs.

Adobe Acrobat Pro is even worse. It asks you for the MS Office Toolbar and for the PDF Printer. After you say no, it asks you again about the Safari Plug-in. Then you still have to quit Safari to complete the install even though you are not using the plug-in.

6 Replies to “Adobe PDFViewer Safari Plugin, No Thanks”

  1. Thanks to gbfields for the fix to my problem. I still had to quit Safari to not install the plug-in.
    http://forums.adobe.com/message/2753053

    Re: ‘Repair Setup’ dialog box not selectable in Acrobat 8.2.2 updater
    OK, I was able to “fix” this on two separate Macs today, and I am offering the steps I used as a possible solution. This is just what worked for me, obviously without guarantees or promises, but here it is anyway (requires moderate proficiency with computers—apologies if I’m over-explaining it):

    1. The Adobe updater downloads a bunch of files to /tmp, usually under /tmp/AdobeARM-/.
    2. When you get the dual screens and are stuck, open Terminal and get the process list (ps -A) or use any other method you prefer.
    3. You will notice a process name similar to this: 

    3200 ?? 0:00.24 /tmp/AdobeARM-8f2DL4xHl4GnhXYIAcM2QOn0MkXo4oKE/ARMHammer -App /Applications/Adobe Reader 9/Adobe Reader.app -AppType Adobe Reader

    (this is all one line that’s wrapped here because it’s too long). Remember the path and the command-line arguments to the executable called ARMHammer.
    4. Kill this process along with any others in this temporary directory, this is what I had:

    2954 ?? 0:16.32 /Users/george/Library/Caches/com.adobe.Reader.ARM/925793fb327152fd34795896fa1fb 9ffa268b2a852256fe56609efa3/Adobe Reader Updater.app/Contents/MacOS/ARM -psn_0_1073414
3200 ?? 0:00.23 /tmp/AdobeARM-8f2DL4xHl4GnhXYIAcM2QOn0MkXo4oKE/ARMHammer -App /Applications/Adobe Reader 9/Adobe Reader.app -AppType Adobe Reader
3302 ?? 0:09.72 /tmp/AdobeARM-8f2DL4xHl4GnhXYIAcM2QOn0MkXo4oKE/updaters/AdbeRdrUpd932_all_i386. app/Contents/MacOS/AdbeRdrUpd932_all_i386 -path /Applications/Adobe Reader 9/Adobe Reader

    4.1 Use: kill , on the command line (Terminal), for example for me that was three separate commands: kill 2954, kill 3200, and kill 3302
    4.2 You will probably need to issue these as a super user, type sudo kill     to do that, or temporarily become root (sudo su) if you have the root user enabled on the Mac
    5. Navigate (still in Terminal) to the temporary directory and run the ARMHammer command alone, exactly as it was run above (from the process listing we got in step 3). Mine looked like this: 

    george@leela:/tmp/AdobeARM-8f2DL4xHl4GnhXYIAcM2QOn0MkXo4oKE$ ./ARMHammer -App /Applications/Adobe\ Reader\ 9/Adobe\ Reader.app/ -AppType Adobe Reader

    (this is all one line)
    6. The “Repair Setup” window should come up (Reader might ask for your password), alone, and you should be able to interact with it. From this point on, you should be able to make your selection. To kill the ARMHammer process, go back to the Terminal window it’s in and press Control-C (it will be blocking input to the Terminal so you can’t type anything in there anyway). Or just close the Terminal window.

    Hope that helps someone. Probably not.

    – George

  2. It’s really sad. I cannot update to the latest version of Acrobat. The updater puts up a modal dialog without focus — nice.

  3. Looks like Reader 9.3.3 updater is able to update without hanging on the plug-in.

    1. The new installer just installed the Plug-in without asking. You can find it in /Library/Internet Plug-ins/ and kill it. I prefer to move it to a sub folder called “Disabled”. Restart your web browsers and you will be back in business and Adobe-free.

    2. The TechNote on this Reader update says “Updater improvements”. i guess that’s what they call it when they install
      AdobePDFViewer.plugin without asking you.

      Enhancements for security (including a zero-day fix), performance enhancements, bug fixes, improved browser support, and Updater improvements.

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